


Forgiveness (ii)

by passeridae



Series: Variations on a Theme [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Body Horror, Body Modification, F/F, mild objectification, scrimshaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passeridae/pseuds/passeridae
Summary: Perhaps, even with this distance between them, she can be close to Danielle. She’s always wondered at what exactly is written on her, etched into her bones. When Danielle had done them, gently, bloodlessly, she had asked if she wanted to know. “I trust you,” she had responded. “I love you.”





	Forgiveness (ii)

The faucet above the bathtub is dripping. It is the only sound in the apartment. Cassandra sighs, tilting her head back to rest against the tiled wall, and tries to ignore the gnawing ache of loneliness in her chest. Danielle has been away for almost a week now, the longest they’ve been separated since they began dating, and her absence aches like a pressed bruise, tender and purpling and hot. She can’t help pressing at it over and over.

(She first met Danielle at a bar, of all places. Out at work drinks, she had been approached by a stunning woman in an immaculate suit, despite it already going on eleven. She’d stumbled out an introduction, feeling her face burn in embarrassment, and rather than laughing at her Danielle had smiled and offered to buy her a drink.)

The drip of the faucet startles her from her memory. The water steams around her in the bath, fogging up the room. She presses her hand to her chest, remembering their evening, pressing and pressing on the ache. She feels so lost without Danielle here, so aimless. Then, in a moment of insight, she looks down. Her hand is pressed to her sternum, between her breasts. Her sternum on which Danielle had carved declarations of love.

Perhaps, even with this distance between them, she can be close to Danielle. She’s always wondered at what exactly is written on her, etched into her bones. When Danielle had done them, gently, bloodlessly, she had asked if she wanted to know. “I trust you,” she had responded. “I love you.” 

Danielle had tweaked her nose, “I know that, silly thing.” Maybe now, now with her missing Danielle like half her heart, she could finally take a look at this permanent symbol of their love.

So decided, she rises from the bath with a susurrus of water, and reaches for the bathroom cabinet. From here, she takes a razorblade. Of all the things they have in the house, this is the best for her purpose. The kitchen knives are too blunt, scissors obviously unsuitable. 

Settling back down, she pulls up the plug to let a trickle of water run down the drain, until the water level is to her waist. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. In her chest, under her ribs, her heart is fluttering like a bird’s. Does she really want to do this? Does she really miss Danielle that much? She bites her lip, rolls it back and forth. She does. She exhales and brings the razorblade to the top of her chest.

It hurts much more than she thought it would. When Danielle had opened her up originally, there was a faint pressure then a delighted gasp, nothing more. Now, alone, it burns and burns, forces her breath out in a bitten-off gasp. Blood runs down her stomach and fractals out into the water, rivulets of rusty orange trailing out like her hair around her. One incision is not enough, the steel of the blade too springy, so she makes a second, right in the middle of the blood. This, too, fails to dig deep enough and she sobs, once. The bath water is tinged a bright orange, deeply around her, lighter towards the edge. She thinks, almost deliriously, that movies lied to her– they were full of red bathtubs and hers is orange. One final time, she draws the razor down her chest.

Success. Through the blood and the pain making her eyes hazy, she can see a peek of white. She gasps, then winces at the bolt of pain the action causes her. Each breath pulls at the side of the incision, but oh how it will be worth it to see, to touch, declarations of Danielle’s love.

With trembling hands, she reaches into the incision and parts the two sides to widen her field of view. The tissue is surprisingly slippery under her hands, but parts with little reluctance and she can see, for the first time, her bones.

It is not a declaration of love she finds.

The first, boldest inscription reads, “mine”. Another reads, “so weak, but so cute”, a third, “perfect little doll”, and, finally “best thing I ever created”. It’s the final one that hits her hardest. Danielle had started saying it about a year into their relationship and Cassandra had requested she stop soon after. Something about it made her uncomfortable, made her feel less than human. Danielle had apologised, and stopped, but… but there are the times she half remembers, which she had passed off as dreams, of Danielle carding her fingers through her hair and saying it. Of whispers as they parted ways in the mornings which were changed to, “have a good day,” when she asked Danielle to repeat them. If she hadn’t listened to her when she asked for that, then what else had she ignored?

Mind racing, she thinks back to social events where Danielle had treated her more like a handbag than a person, the quips about her weight, the compliments on how she looked just like a doll. Her breathing has sped up, and every breath burns as the wound is pulled open. She swallows heavily, lips pressed together. There are tears misting her eyes, and she wants to choke at the smell of copper in the damp air.

The front door opens.

Her head snaps towards the sound. Danielle is away for two more days, who else has a key? The door is closed, then the sound of heels clicks down the corridor. Without knocking, the door to the bathroom is opened, bringing with it a gust of cold wind and the smell of clean linen. “I managed to convince my boss that I didn’t need to stay for the last two days of the conference so I…” Danielle trails off, immaculate in her suit despite having just stepped off a five hour flight. Cassandra feels small and weak compared to her: naked in the bath with blood dripping over her. Exposed, not just physically. Fragile, too, with what she has just seen, what she has been thinking.

“Oh, silly thing,” Danielle chides with a smile. “If you’d waited until I got home I would have showed you this with far less pain than you must be in now.”

Cassandra opens her mouth, wants to ask about the words she saw, wants to know, but Danielle stops her with a beckoning motion, “Out of the bath now, so I can fix you up. You really do get carried away sometimes, don’t you?” She is already turning back to the living room, giving Cassandra no choice but to follow. As she walks, she drips blood and water on the floor, a trail of breadcrumbs. Danielle motions for her to sit on the sofa without turning to face her, rummaging in the kitchen for something. She sits on the lumpy corduroy, still damp, blood slowly pooling around her thighs. It’s uncomfortable, both the openness of her chest and the fabric under her. This is the only item of furniture she contributed to the apartment, and it shows in texture and form. She’s so focused on the sensation of the fabric and her chest that she jumps when Danielle sits next to her, then hisses at the tearing pain that results. She’s traded the aching pain of loneliness for the ripping pain of whatever this is (clarity? understanding?) and this pain hurts so much more. 

As Danielle inspects the wound, she finally begins to cry. The salt hits the gash in her chest, releasing starbursts of white hot pain, and Danielle cups her cheek with one palm. “Don’t worry it, will be better soon,” she soothes, smoothing a thumb over a tear track. Removing her palm, she licks the salt from her thumb and continues, “But why did you do this now, silly thing, it would have been much smarter to ask me?”

“I missed you,” she chokes out, and once she starts she can’t stop speaking: “I missed you and I wanted to be close to you, wanted to feel your love, but what you wrote… what you wrote isn’t love at all.” Her last word breaks on a sob and she wants to hyperventilate except she knows that will only cause more pain from the wound that is still bleeding into the sofa.

Danielle tuts and inserts a threaded needle into one side of the gash. “This is why I said you should have let me open it. You’ve misinterpreted everything I wrote: do you really think that I don’t love you?” Danielle looks up, briefly, with one raised eyebrow, before going back and pulling the needle out the other side of the wound. The thread moving through her skin makes her shudder in revulsion. Danielle has always taken care of her, ever since they started dating. Even now, as she’s accusing her of not loving her, Danielle is patiently sewing up the harm she did to herself. She’s bought her food, paid for this apartment, and asked for so little back. But those words, they didn’t sound like love. They sound like ownership.

“Could you explain it to me?” she asks, voice small. Danielle smiles, benevolent, and starts talking about how attractive she finds her, but how bad she is at expressing that, how she loves her so much she wants them to be together forever, how she is hers and vice versa. Danielle’s voice undulates like water, and she is drawn under by her soothing, her closeness, the repetitive rasp and pull of thread moving through her body.

“What about the last one, ‘best thing I ever made’?” she asks as Danielle is taping gauze over the closed wound. “I asked you to stop saying that.”

“You did,” Danielle confirms, “and I did in turn. Do you remember when this etching occurred?” She doesn’t, they’ve been such a part of their lives together, happening whenever Danielle feels a desire. She shakes her head, damp hair sticking to her shoulders.

“It was before that conversation, silly thing. I couldn’t have known.”

The bottom falls out of her stomach, and she feels like crying again. She’s such an idiot, so useless, not to remember a detail like that which was so vitally important. Of course Danielle would never do anything to purposefully harm her, she’d worked herself into a frenzy over nothing. She sobs, begins to apologise, but Danielle stops her with a hand on her head, “You always get carried away, don't you? I guess in the future I’ll have to make my trips shorter so you don’t have time to work yourself up like this, hm?”

She throws herself at Danielle, still covered in blood and damp but not caring one bit, needing the closeness. Danielle grimaces at the blood on her suit, but says nothing, pulling her close and placing her chin on Cassandra’s head. “I think we need a new sofa,” she says wryly, staring at the puddle of blood on the other cushion. Cassandra sobs, pain lancing from the stitches with each heave, until she’s limp in Danielle’s arms. Danielle arranges her in a comfortable position, fetches a damp cloth, and cleans the tacky blood from her skin. “My pretty doll,” she whispers against Cassandra’s lips as she gives her a chaste kiss.

“Thank you,” Cassandra whispers.

Danielle huffs a breath and turns to her bag, “I found you a gift while I was away, close your eyes.” Cassandra smiles as she obeys, and something is looped once, twice, three times around her neck, tied to rest at the hollow of her throat. When she opens her eyes she can see strings of black leather trailing over the tops of her breasts, speckled with garnets. She picks up one end, rolling it between her fingers. Danielle stares at her, indulgent, “A pretty necklace for my pretty girl.” As Cassandra swallows, the garnets press hard against her neck. They gleam like blood.


End file.
